1.1 Research Background and Research Rationale
This section will explain the background of the research and the rationale to study authorial stance and CMs in EAPs by authors in different disciplines and from different linguistic-cultural backgrounds.
Generally speaking,impersonality is perceived as the defining feature of EAPs,and academic research writing is traditionally considered to be objective,factual and removed from human touch as far as possible(Hyland & Guinda,2012).The authors of academic writings aim to be objective in their expressions of ideas and attempt to avoid explicit and specific reference to personal opinions.EAPs are naturally seen as being neutral,faceless,and voiceless depictions of reality which carries the special weight of older traditions and ideals of scientific objectivity(Lee,2006;Mauranen & Bondi,2003a).What’s more,it is undisputed to argue that when the authors report a fact objectively in the EAPs,then the persuasion is successful.For instance,Latour & Woolgar(1979)proposes that if the scientists could regard the accepted arguments as immutable facts rather than realize that they have been persuaded,then the rhetorical persuasion could be considered to be effective.
However,in the genre of EAPs,the authors have to choose some linguistic resources to align the readers with their personal feelings,attitudes,values,judgements and assessments.As a result,according to Hood(2010:1),there is another area of challenge which is less overtly researched,that of dealing with the“conflict”between the objective nature and subjective or interpersonal meanings in academic discourse,between“reporting objective data”and“signaling subjective evaluation”(Hyland,1996),between“social involvement in detached and anti-social text”(Brandt,1990)and“the persuasive nature of text to be hidden behind veneer of objectivity”(Hunston & Thompson,2001:177),and between“the understanding of the text”and“the evaluation of the text”(Halliday,1994:41).
Academic papers presuppose an audience that has to be persuaded,and thus entails a stronger focus on the audience than does any other genre.Just as Knorr-Cetina(1981:106)mentions,academic discourse is a multilayered hybrid co-produced by the authors and by the audiences to which it is directed.Hyland(2004)indicates that academic authors do not only produce texts that reasonably represent an external reality,but also use language to offer an authentic representation of themselves and their work,and to acknowledge and negotiate social relations with the readers.Hyland(2004:1-2)points out that the ability of the authors to control the level of personality in their texts,to claim solidarity with readers,to evaluate their materials,and to acknowledge alternative views,is now recognized as a key feature of successful academic writing.
Therefore,the topic how the authors persuade and align their readers to realize the academic success deserves more attention.As to the types of academic writings,the genre of EAPs is more under-researched than students’essays which have been largely researched(Intaraprawat,1988;Jones et al.,1989;Drury & Webb,1991;Drury,1991;Intaraprawat & Steffensen,1995;Kamimura & Oi,1998;Varghese & Abraham,1998;Lee,2006).So it is necessary to explore the authorial stance in EAPs.
The current dissertation defines authorial stance as the epistemic and affective judgements and attitudes conveyed by the author in the authorreader interaction which could fulfill or counter the reader’s expectations.According to Biber et al.(1999),authorial stance could be realized by either non-linguistic or linguistic devices.For example,in conversations,body postures,facial expressions,gestures,as well as some paralinguistic devices such as pitch,duration,and intensity,all could express the stance of the speakers.It is reasonable to say that the speakers express the covert or implicit stance in conversation by using intonation,facial expressions,etc.Linguistic resources which realize stance are also various.Some value-laden words could express the affective or evaluative meanings.For example,difficult in these experiments are difficult,and best in the best results could illustrate the stance that the author wants to express,but both of the two expressions need the context and shared background.
Apart from lexical resources,grammatical devices can also be used to express authorial stance.For example,Biber et al.(1999)list five grammatical categories:stance adverbials such as unfortunately,as one might expect,stance complement clauses such as I just hope that,modals and semi-modals such as might,has to,stance noun+prepositional phrases such as the possibility,and premodifying stance adverbs(stance adverb+adjective or noun phrase)such as really,about.
Another perspective to interpret authorial stance is to analyze the grammatical pattern.Hunston & Sinclair(2000)explain some special grammatical structures which convey obvious evaluative meanings.Sinclair(2000)lists the clausal pattern which could construe stance.The patterns related with nouns are N be that,it v-link poss N that,poss N be that,it v-link det N that,it v-link a adj.N that;and the clauses related with adjectives are ADJ that,ADJ wh,it v-link ADJ that,it v-link ADj for n that,it v-link ADJ of n that,it v-link ADJ to n that,it v n ADJ that,it v n as ADJ wh,it v-link ADJ what/how,it v-link ADJ when/if,v it as ADJ that.Based on appraisal theory,Liu(2006)summaries the grammatical patterns which could express attitudinal stance.Hunston(2011)analyzes the evaluative meanings of phrasal and grammatical patterns based on the corpus-based approach.By a multidimensional analysis of the stance markers in large corpus,Precht(2000)identifies his own stance patterns in English.Groom(2005)compares the grammatical pattern in academic papers and book reviews in the disciplines of history and literary criticism.
Apart from the lexical and grammatical realizations mentioned above,the role of CMs in construing authorial stance receives relatively little systemic and empirical study.Quirk et al.(1985:632)relate the concept of conjuncts to the speaker’s judgement of how he/she views the connection between two linguistic units.According to Deng(2012),the main functions of conjunctions are three fold in that they are used to organize the ideational information,to present the audience overtly the packaged information,and to convey authorial stance.That is to say,when expressing ideas with a CM in a clause nexus,the authors must do three things:(1)to structure clauses in a contextually appropriate sequence,(2)to suggest the nature of the relationship between clauses in cohesive terms,and(3)to demonstrate the different status of each clause or clause complex in terms of their personal stance.
The selection of CMs in this dissertation is obviously motivated by interpersonal aspects,and can be considered as being a result of certain decisions by the authors to help the readers navigate through the text.It demonstrates the authors’awareness of the readers which is inscribed in academic communication(Warchal,2010).Since the definitions of the CMs are various,it is necessary to define it in the current research.This discussion limits the study of CMs to explicit formal conjunctive resources forming expansive clause complexes.There are several further explanations about this definition.
Firstly,potential conjunctive relations that are not signaled by CMs are out of the current research,although it may be noted that certain clausal relations,such as conditionals,can exist without the overt presence of a CM.
Secondly,CMs in the dissertation are about the authors’assessments of how they view the connection between two or more clauses which could form expansive clause complexes.In fact,CMs could connect words,phrases,clauses,paragraphs or even larger units such as texts.However,the role of CMs are especially important in the formation of expansive clause complexes.According to Halliday & Matthiessen(1999:48-49),the phenomena of experience are of three orders of complexity:elementary(a single element),configuration(i.e.a figure)and complex(a complex of figures,i.e.a sequence).This could be illustrated in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1 Types of phenomena(Halliday & Matthiessen,1999:49)
A sequence is a series of related figures while a figure is a representation of experience“in the form of a configuration,consisting of a process,participants taking part in this process and associated circumstances”(Halliday & Matthiessen,1999:52).Elements fill the roles of figures and the elements of a figure are of four kinds:processes,participants,circumstances and relators(Halliday & Matthiessen,1999:177),among which processes are grammatically realized by verbal groups,participants by nominal groups,circumstances by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases,and relators by conjunctions or conjunctive groups.Relators construe a logico-semantic relation between the clauses in a clause nexus,i.e.realize a sequence.
Sequence represents the relationship among various figures.Halliday& Matthiessen(1999:104)divide the relation of sequence into two types:expansive relation and projective relation.As a highly generalized type of relation,expansion is typically realized by conjunctions or conjunctive expressions linking a pair of clause,either paratactically or hypotactically(Halliday & Matthiessen,1999:118).In the current research,relators are typically realized by CMs such as and,so,if,that,because,however,etc.In addition,prepositional phrases such as in addition,for fear that,nominal groups such as(at)the moment that,and various expressions involving non-finite verbs such as provided that are all grammatical realizations of relators.They are all used to connect clauses to form expansive clause complexes.
Furthermore,Hoey(2001:22-23)points out that whenever we read a sentence it sets up expectations in our mind and those expectations shape our interpretation of what comes next.Based on Goodman’s(1967)term psycho-linguistic guessing game,Hoey(2001:23)presents a diagram in Figure 1.2,which is about the interaction of a reader’s expectations and a writer’s sentences.
Seen from Figure 1.2,it could be seen that when the reader is reading a sentence,he/she forms expectations about how the text may continue.Based on the expectations,the author writes to align the readers and construe his/her stance.The signals connecting Sentence 1 and Sentence 2 are typically conjuncts or sentence conjunctions in Hoey’s(2001:27)interpretation,and are CMs in the dissertation.That is to say,CMs are motivated by interpersonal aspects and are crucial in the author-reader interaction.Therefore,in this dissertation CMs refer to the conjunctive devices forming expansive clause complexes.Those which connect phrases or groups are out of research.
Figure 1.2 A representation of the interaction of a reader’s expectations and a writer’s sentences(Hoey,2001:23)
Thirdly,CMs in the domain of SFL are divided into internal and external types(Halliday & Hasan,1976;Martin,1992;Halliday & Matthiessen,2004).Being internal to the text,internal relations represent the conjunctive relationships between steps or moves in the discourse rather than between the external events and states represented in the text.However,in this dissertation,the opposition between internal and external,or inter-textual and intra-textual(Lee,2006:175)CMs will not be the focus since most CMs in academic discourse are internal(Thompson,2005).
Fourthly,CMs stand on its own as a category,and cover the use of adjunct-like elements by writers to mark the semantic relationships they perceive as holding between the clauses they produce.Thus,items such as however,alternatively,and on the other hand all belong to the category of CMs and serve to mark a perceived semantic relation.
The introduction above draws attention to the necessity to select EAPs as the genre,to focus on the research of authorial stance and to choose CMs as the analyzing lexicogrammatical devices.What’s more,the current research will be conducted to compare the distribution of CMs in EAPs by the authors in different disciplines and from different linguistic-cultural backgrounds.The rationale to choose these two analyzing perspectives are given below.
On the one hand,Hyland(2000:10)argues that“doing good research represents using some post-hoc justifications sanctioned by institutional arrangements”.Therefore,the authors’disciplinary inclinations in using the epistemic and affective assumptions will be reflected in their academic writings.In short,disciplines are human institutions where actions and thoughts are influenced by the the authors’personal and social experiences.Each discipline may be considered as a tribe(Becher,1989)with its particular norms and conventions.Within each discipline,the authors will use different lexicogrammatical devices to express their ideas and attitudes.According to Hyland(2006:32),it is common for the authors of natural sciences to underestimate their personal role to highlight the phenomena,the research activities and the generality of the research results.While the authors of social sciences and humanities focus on personal credibility and emphasize their own contribution to the field and to seek agreement for it.So it is significant and urgent to do a cross-disciplinary comparison when analyzing authorial stance in EAPs.
The scholars show their own inclinations in the use of lexicogrammatical devices in judging the similarities and differences in expressing authorial stance of various disciplines.For example,Bondi(2005)and Bondi & Silver(2004)analyze the self-representation in articles in the field of history and economics.Busa(2005)explores the differences of theme-rheme structures between economic and psychological abstracts.Charles(2003)analyzes the this+noun structure in the PhD dissertations of politics and materials.Groom(2005)studies it+adj.+that structure in the review articles in the disciplines of literature criticism and history.Hyland(1997,1998a,1998b,1999a,1999b,2000,2001,2003,2005)analyzes various stance markers in articles and textbooks in various disciplines.Motta-Roth(1998)studies the evaluative resources in academic books in social sciences.
In this study,the division of the disciplines are based on the interpretation of Bernstein(1996,1999,2000),Martin et al.(2013)and Maton(2014).
Figure 1.3 Bernstein’s(1996,1999,2000)reformulation of common and uncommon sense(from Martin et al.,2013:436)
Figure 1.3 shows that Bernstein(1996,1999,2000)makes a comparison between horizontal and vertical discourse,and within vertical discourse between hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures.In Bernstein’s(2000:157)classification,horizontal discourse is common in that it includes a series of modes which are“local segmentally organised,context specific and dependent”,so it inclines to be“oral,local,context dependent and specific,tacit,multi-layered and contradictory across but not within contexts”.Comparatively,vertical discourse is uncommon in that it is either hierarchically organised with the form of“a coherent,explicit and systematically principled structure as in the sciences”or horizontally structured with“the form of a set of specialised languages with specialised modes of interrogation and specialized criteria for producing and circulating the texts”(Bernstein,2000:157)as in social sciences and humanities.Accordingly,it is easy to distinguish hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structure in vertical discourse.
Based on the above illustration,it could be summarized that Bernstein(1996,1999,2000)firstly makes a distinction between the everyday practical discourse and the academic discourse and secondly,within academic discourse,between“the technically integrated knowledge constructed in natural sciences and the less technical,more segmental understandings in the social sciences and humanities”(Martin et al.,2013:436).Maton(2014)further expands the explanation of knowledge structure and proposes the concept“knower structure”in the Legitimation Code Theory.
Seen from Figure 1.4,the division between hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structure lays foundation for the division of various disciplines in this dissertation.
Figure 1.4 Disciplines in Vertical Discourse(partly from Martin et al.,2013:438)
Based on the above explanation,three disciplines are classified in the current study:natural sciences(henceforth N),with physics and biology as the typical disciplines,social sciences(henceforth S),with linguistics and sociology as the typical disciplines,and humanities(henceforth H),with history and literacy as the typical disciplines.It is clear that such general distinctions could not capture the full complexity of disciplinary differences,and might merely be acceptable at the general level of analysis,but they do apply an efficient basis for identifying the various dimensions of these fields.Moreover,Hyland(2000:30)states that these differences are closely bound to the“social activities,cognitive styles and epistemological beliefs of specific disciplinary communities”.
On the other hand,apart from the disciplinary comparison,the dissertation will compare the use of CMs based on the linguistic-cultural backgrounds of the authors.There might be similarities and differences in the use of CMs by the authors who are from English-speaking countries(henceforth AEs)such as America,Australia,and England as well as those who are from non-English speaking countries(henceforth ANEs).AEs and ANEs are different in their educational systems,psychological viewpoints,cultural stances and so on.Many scholars(e.g.,Almeida,1984;Connor,1984;Silva,1993;Biggs,1996)touch upon the comparison of AEs and ANEs,or L1 writers and L2 writers in the use of various linguistic resources.It is significant for the teachers and students,especially those from non-English speaking countries in the teaching and leaning to write in English.
Nonetheless,the comparison of CMs by AEs and ANEs receives very little attention.EAP is a high-stakes genre in the scholars’academic accomplishments.Both AEs and ANEs can use CMs to implicitly or explicitly express their attitudes and judgements.Nevertheless,there would be differences in employing specific CMs.For example,according to Lee(2006),ANEs are required to produce texts not only for the target culture but also for the particular academic discourse community,whereas AEs only need to learn communicating within only one culture.So this kind of comparison is of great need and importance.Thus this dissertation intends to shed light on the comparison of CMs in the EAPs written by AEs and ANEs respectively.